Antony and the Johnsons - Town Hall February 19, 2009

Yesterday was the night to go to a concert in NYC. So many options! Leonard Cohen at the Beacon, M Ward at the Apollo and Antony and the Johnsons at Town Hall. It sounds like the Leonard Cohen show was pretty legendary It has been fifteen years since he last played in the USA, and he performed a 3+ hour set. He is coming back to play RCMH in May. Must get tickets. See link for set list to the show....(I so want to hear Hallelujah, First We Take Manhattan, Everybody Knows, So Long Marianne and Chelsea Hotel!!! live)

Anyways, I went to the second best show of the night :) The opener was some form of performance art by Claywoman. She's 500 million years old and is very into the planets and existentialism (it seems). Entertaining.... seems like something that I would see at the BAM.

I've seen Antony many times over the years. This set did not disappoint. The lighting at Town Hall was brighter than usual for an Antony gig and I was transfixed on the beauty of it all. He has one special voice. The show was focused mainly on the new album, The Crying Light. Antony wears his heart on his sleeve in his music and it shows very well in live form. The latest album is very focused on environmental themes with a dash of apocalyptical questioning ("Another World").

The show got kicked off with "Where is My Power" which segwayed into "Her Eyes are Underneath the Ground" which is the opening track to the album and one of my personal highlights to the show. Frankly there were no bad tracks.... and hearing "Epilepsy is Dancing", "One Dove", "Kiss My Name", "Everglade" and "Aeon" live only reinforced my belief that this is a worthy followup album to I Am A Bird Now which won the Mercury Music Prize in 2005.

Older standards such as "For today I Am a Boy", "Fistful of Love" (awesome live interpretation), "You Are My Sister"(great to hear this one live), "Twilight"(Antony's ode to NYC), "Cripple and Starfish"(another personal fave) and "Hope There's Someone" rounded out the show. Plus he played "Crazy in Love", a song that he has sort of adopted as his own. Beautiful night.

Check out this Letterman performance from Wednesday of Aeon.